Leadership Programme: The first meeting

Divya Vaidya

13 February 2018

7 students, different fields, different conditionings and the Culture Lab.

little do we know about each other.

a mason jar filled with colored treats.

pop one and speak one truth.

a strength, a weakness.

a happy moment, an embarrassing one.

three rounds and a plate of red velvet cake later

a little more acquainted we get.

discussions... discussions...

is a room enough to contain them?

An interactive ice-breaker later, it was time to get down to the serious stuff. Each of us spoke about our ideas about what we wanted to change in the culture of our city (the question was part of our application process). It indeed was interesting to see how the rest of my Leadership Programme fellows had different perspectives on the city's culture - things that I would have been oblivious to otherwise.

To open up this discussion further, we headed up to the terrace to find an amazing view of the Vikhroli mangroves. Much like the ageless bonsai sitting still and growing in a garden, we sat on the grass and were asked to do something really difficult - choose the best of the seven ideas.

Only one of the seven ideas would be chosen to come to life in the form of a Culture Lab event in June. So, we had a poll. We were asked to choose three ideas we liked best. At the end of it, some ideas were folded into the others and some others were put away for another time.

Post the discussion I realized two things - first, we needed to be more exposed to the way the Lab worked and also that we needed to get acquainted with the way each of us worked individually and as a team. Secondly, I barely knew what exactly happened inside the glass walls of the building itself - it felt like we were travelling through the magical doors from Monsters Inc., the movie.

Parmesh decided to give us a walkthrough of the building which included a visit at the GCPL Design Lab. I loved Sameer Kulavoor’s 'kirana' store (general store) mural that displays objects one would find in such a store, only these had all the products that Godrej manufactures.

While going back downstairs, we saw The Dancing Queens practicing for their performance for their event at the Lab.

Finally, the evening ended with L'Affaire! the future of lifestyle, a collaboration between Godrej and VERVE Magazine. Conversations over wine followed, with Parmesh introducing us to the editors and curators of the event. With cupcakes to design and rainbow selfies clicked, overall it was quite an evening!